Access Linux Platform Shown at LinuxWorld

PalmSource is exhibiting at the LinuxWorld conference going on this week in Boston. PalmInfocenter is live on the scene to bring you this exclusive new preview of the Access Linux Platform.

Read on for more about the Access Linux Platform and check out some new screenshots of the current ALP prototype being shown at LinuxWorld.

Access Linux Platform Overview
The ACCESS Linux Platform is the next mobile software platform from PalmSource. It has its roots in the Palm OS for Linux project. ALP is a combination of a number of technologies including Palm OS for Linux, the NetFront mobile web browser and a number of open source projects.

Linux is the core of the new operating system and ALP is based on the version 2.6.12 of the Linux kernel. ALP contains a number of programming options for developers. There are four main options available:

MAX Applications (the native ALP interface)

Palm OS 68k Emulation layer

GTK+ (native linux like environment)

J2ME (Java Virtual Machine)

Before you get used to saying the ACCESS Linux program or ALP, keep in mind this is not the final name of the operating system. ALP and MAX are both still working code names for the platform.

MAX
The main new user interface is the MAX application framework. It is said to be an evolution of the "zen of palm" user experience. It is the main preferred developer framework that PalmSource wants developers to take advantage of.

MAX is designed to support both traditional one handed phone operation (with a 5-way navigator and two dedicated soft keys) and touch-screen and stylus based handsets. MAX will also finally bring multitasking and concurrent applications to the Palm OS faithful. It fully supports multiple concurrent applications and background tasks.

A new feature of the MAX interface is something called "access panels". When a application is running on ALP, a small bar along the bottom of the display will show small icons that provide shortcut access to common tasks for open applications.

All of the pre-installed ALP applications will use MAX. This includes updated "more modern" versions of the PalmSource PIM suite, multimedia and messaging applications. Access' Netfront will be the default built in web browser. The latest version of Netfront will support AJAX technologies (Asynchronous JavaScript + XML), SMIL2.1 specification (W3C SMIL Mobile Profile and W3C SMIL extended Mobile Profile) as well as a new plug in architecture that will allow videos and office documents to be displayed in the browser.

PalmInfocenter Exclusive ALP Screenshots

The following screenshots show a few aspects of the Access Linux Platform. Please note that these are not representative of the final shipping version of the Access Linux Platform. They are from the ALP demo prototype that is being used by PalmSource to demonstrate at tradeshows. The actual phone is a Haier linux smartphone. It is solely being used for demonstration purposes, as Haier is not a licensee or involved with ALP.

This is a mock up of what a carrier could use to customize a typical MAX display

RE: Windowing system?

X is not a pig; it ran fine on machines that had less power than the original (!) Palm. X is tuned to the hardware it runs on. On your desktop, it is tuned to use possibly hundreds of megabytes. It can be tuned to run in a few hundred kilobytes for a PDA.

I'd be more worried about the use of Gtk; it is a desktop toolkit, developed with big desktop machines in mind and the features that people want on those machine (animation, theming, etc.).

What GUI?

It's not like there's much to go on, here. Aside from what we've already seen there's a self-proclaimed "mock up" of a screen and a simple-looking dialog with text-labeled buttons that opened from a taskbar icon at the bottom of the screen. Palm OS already uses a taskbar like that, so that's hardly new.

The main thing that I think we'll see with ALP, based on what we know of the Rome interface and what's been repeated to me by Lefty, is that it's "task oriented." From the sound of it the system is not just aware of "applications" that are running it's aware of common tasks those applications register with it. So an taskbar icon that represents your MP3 player running in the background might present you with an "access panel" that would let you mute, pause, or resume your music without having to bring the whole application into view. If I have that right, it sounds like a nice innovation.

RE: My latest prediction in the hawrdware side of things...

"PDA market" being a catch-all term used for both dedicated PDAs as well as smartphones?

Or "PDA market" specifically referring to only conventional PDAs?

Heck, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a true "conventional" PDA never shipped with ALP. I think we can all safely assume Palm is going to milk Garnet as long as possible and then drop PDAs entirely by next year. Either that or they will try to kickstart the market by capitalizing on their near monopoly of the remaining slivers of the "PDA" market, offering cellular & HD-equipped tablet style devices running whatever their own home-brewed Linux solution is.

Either way, I don't think Access are in Palm's plans any longer other than someone to buy the IP for Garnet & Cobalt for penies on the dollar (assuming this is needed if backwards compatability cannot legally be reverse engineered). After that it's Palm vs Access/PalmSource as competitors of sorts--with Access making a strong push into Asia & emerging markets (India etc) and Palm sticking to their usual mainstays of the USA and Western Europe.

Imagine a split kinda similar to how JVC & RCA used to be together then broke apart at the onset of WWII, their former ties being a distant memory during the furious VCR & camcorder wars of the 1980s ;-)That'll be Palm & PalmSource down the road if both stay in business.

RE: My latest prediction in the hawrdware side of things...

hkklife wrote:I think we can all safely assume Palm is going to milk Garnet as long as possible and then drop PDAs entirely by next year. Either that or they will try to kickstart the market by capitalizing on their near monopoly of the remaining slivers of the "PDA" market, offering cellular & HD-equipped tablet style devices running whatever their own home-brewed Linux solution is.

The latter.

Although you should still be a little careful in the assumption that Palm has no interest in ALP. There's not enough to see yet to know they're not interested, and if my guy is right about their Linux platform being more of a hedge than an actual product there are plenty of good reasons for them to have done it that have nothing to do with their opinion's of ACCESS's plans. For one thing, it makes a good bargaining chip. For another, if they think there's a reasonable chance their customers will examine the options and prefer an ALP-powered Treo to one with their own OS they still need to grow their in-house Linux expertise.

I'm sure Palm is approaching the prospect of licensing ALP with the utmost caution and a healthy dose of skepticism, but I doubt they've written it off. If Palm does license ALP, part of the deal might be that they get to put their tweaked-out Treo version of Garnet in the emulator--and ACCESS might sweeten their licensing deal a bit if Palm agreed to license that back to ACCESS as the standard ROM image for GHost. While I don't think the Palm OS part of ALP is a major focus for ACCESS, they may prefer to release it with a Palm-enhanced Garnet than the bare-bones and neglected version that PalmSource owns.

Will it use HotSync??

I like HotSync because it works much better then MS Sync. Also, can it be Sync through WiFi and wireless WAN so we can have the phone sync up with Exchange emails, calendar schedule, contacts and tasks anytime we want?

RE: So no-go for OS5 apps?

Says who? From what I've heard PACE Native Objects and anything else that's a Garnet API will be supported. As long as the developer isn't using unsupported/undocumented APIs (i.e. their application is well-behaved) I haven't heard anything that would indicate there would be a problem.

Fantastic news!

On one front, Treo dominates the mobile space, ALP is (almost) finished, and Palm may-or-may-not be developing a linux platform.

On the other, wince licensees are quitting like one-legged men in an ass-kicking contest, vista-mobile only runs on massive clunky bricks, and wince is already dead -- its engineers now working on a PSP ripoff (it's called "innovation" at Microsoft).

It's taken a long time for the market to really shake out, but it looks like the future is solidly Palm OS. This is obviously great news for anyone who cares about quality mobile technology, software development, the fantastic Palm community, and sticking it to the (m$) man. :)

I'm not convinced that Palm is actually developing a new OS from scratch, although it would make perfect sense for them to leak about moves in that direction to reduce ALP licensing rents. My sense is that if palm could outsource the OS, and concentrate on customizations and hardware, they'd be happier than if they had to own the OS again. I might be wrong. :)

------"People who like M$ products tend to be insecure crowd-following newbies lacking in experience and imagination."

RE: Fantastic news!

Newton had it's own share of quirks, problems, and oversized hardware, which is why it ultimately failed, despite it's myriad abilities (for added $$$ of course). In many ways, Apple hasn't really been that different than MS, just less successful at their version of it.

MS if far from dead in the handheld space. Even if HP should happen to pull out (they haven't, their smartphone devices will still run MS software), there are still other licensees. Who's licensing PalmOS (and actually producing products outside the niche) other than Palm? This race is far from decided. Besides, two players means some form of competition, which is always better for the consumer (you and me).

_________________Sean

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

RE: Fantastic news!

Dr. O,So, Apple Newton failed because Apple didn't license the OS from someone else as Palm does? That makes a LOT of sense. And the Apple desktop and iPod are dismal failures because Apple controls their OSs? OK.Yep, Microsoft is an abysmal failure with their own OS business. X-Boxes are sitting on store shelves unsold, and Windows Mobile is not spanking Palm silly in the sales department? On what planet, Dr?

Means the traditional PDA is dead

What this interface shows is that for traditional PDAs, I hope that Palm IS developing its own OS, because ALPs will leave us high and dry.

The OS really doesn't seem that useful for highly data intensive activities (big buttons don't leave room for it). I think those who say, 'well it's all we've seen so far.' are deluding themselves. This will be the smartphone OS.

I HOPE Palm competes with them, because I use my PDA as a portable computer.

RE: Means the traditional PDA is dead

Me too. I expect FrankenGarnet to stick around for another year or two in low end PDAs just to give Palm an easy clean sweep of the

Otherwise, I think you'll basically see the remnants of traditional PDAs (maybe two Palm models and 1-2 Dell/HP offerings) picking up the few slivers of marketshare not taken by cell phones in the sub $250 market. Smartphones will occupy the $250-$500 realm and above that you'll have some oddball mixture of cheapie laptops, Origami & other tablet style devices, ultraportable Windows machines and the occasional odd duck like an Archos media player or similar PMP with PDA features.

P.S. Are you still slugging it out with the LifeDrive as your daily use device?

RE: Means the traditional PDA is dead

1. Those buttons in the "mock-up" screenshot are big relative to a very small phone screen. That doesn't mean that on a PDA-sized screen they would have to be very large at all. Besides, that mock-up looks more like an example of an operator-customized go-to-our-store launcher than a regular application.

2. While ACCESS and Palm *both* are likely to focus their energies on making a nice smartphone experience, ACCESS seems to have at least as broad a vision about the range of devices it wants to support as Palm does. The banner that PalmSource and ACCESS recently shared on the front page of their web sites read: "Together, ACCESS and PalmSource will deliver next generation software solutions for a variety of markets, including mobile devices and phones, home media, and automotive telematics." I'd suggest that some thought may be going into using ALP on screens that are even quite a bit bigger than a PDA.

3. A lot of the thinking that could improve the usability of a multitasking system on a small phone screen could also make the touchscreen-enabled PDA experience better. If ALP's "task-oriented" design turns out to be anything like what I described above, for example, it would be a big improvement over any multi-tasking PDA environment that exists today. Also, it wouldn't hurt PDA users at all to have a better one-handed experience for the times when their interest is in retrieving rather than entering data.

RE: Means the traditional PDA is dead

Since I can't afford to be without my Palm, I bought a new LD on Monday. Played with the thought of the TX, but find the Lifedrive Mode and storage indespensible. Interesting that the new LD I bought did not have patch 2 on it (must have been sitting at CircuitCity for a while, which doesn't bode well for the LD).

On the good side, all the problems I had with G2 nearly being unusable is not the case now. Wonder if something was defective with my old digitizer.

I intend to send it back to Palm and have them fix it.

At least I didn't pay for my first one, and my new one was $150 cheaper than it was a year ago. I hate doing it, but I DID buy the extended warrantee.

RE: Means the traditional PDA is dead

Did you at least give a TX and a 4gb (non-spec but still...) at least a serious consideration?

How is the 2nd LD faring build-quality wise? Any noticable hardware changes from the early production run model you originally had?

How's the 2.0 update doing for you?

While I wouldn't take a LD unless it was: A. $200 or less ANDB. Preloaded with 2.0 from the factory

I still like to keep tabs on users who I know had a rather touch and go experience the first time around with their LD. I mean, heck, my 2nd LD was a bit better than the first LD and I just bought them one month apart.

Personally my ideal solution would be a TX with a ROM update to address the heap issue and a 4gb SD Ultra + card (the one with the flip out USB port) once the spec is ratified and made official.

RE: Means the traditional PDA is dead

>Did you at least give a TX and a 4gb (non-spec but still...) at >least a serious consideration?

Not really. 4GB SDs are really too expensive at this point. Plus, I heavily use the LifeDrive mode in my Palm

>How is the 2nd LD faring build-quality wise? Any noticable >hardware changes from the early production run model you >originally had?

I find the digitizer feels softer than my old one and recognizes my G2 better. Otherwise I haven't noticed anything.

>How's the 2.0 update doing for you?

Working fine. I was surprised it wasn't installed, though.

If the TX had LifeDrive mode and 4GB SDs were les$ (much) expensive, I think I would have switched. I liked the speed of the TX and its size. It does feel sorta cheap compared to the LD, but I could management that.

Tis Interesting...

That is realy interesting to ehar about you and your primary use of an LD. Its kinda weird, but it seems that there is a small but slowly growng number of people who are pushing out to use their PDAs as main computers. With capacities, speeds, and (for the most part) apps in a servicable state, its just interesting.

I use my Treo 650 as only since my laptop went some weeks ago. Outside of missing a few web dev contracts (sucky web browser cannot preview a site done in css correctly), I really havent missed a beat. And I really dont feel like getting a new computer yet either. Tis kinda nice to be bully unteathered.

mobileministrymagazine.comantoinerjwright.com

RE: Means the traditional PDA is dead

I agree, twizza. Recently, on an airplane, I spent a good part of my trip using my LD to spec out the features for an expertise locator at my company. I was really surprised when I synched and opened the doc on my PC at work at how long it was.

I could deal with having my home PC out of action for a week better than not having my LD for a week (scary, really).

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